Day 79; Welcome to the Sandbox

Tuesday, February 1st

I received an email from my soldier tonight.  He was safely in Kuwait and had actually found an Internet café – something that surprises me, as I was not expecting to hear from him at all for the next 1 to 2 weeks. 

Here is his email:

Hi all,

I got to Kuwait about 10 hours ago.  Got a welcome brief, ate midnight chow (The Army invented the "Fourthmeal" before Taco Bell did), went to sleep, took a quick shower (only 15gal allowed!), ate breakfast, and found this internet cafe. 

I'll be here for a couple weeks before I move into Iraq... I haven't figured out where everything is yet, but I found the two most important things:  food and internet!  I am guessing I'll have brief access to the internet once every day or two... this internet cafe only has about 20 computers and there are a couple thousand people here... I'm guessing that not everyone knows it exists yet.

The mythical Starbucks that I heard about is definitely here!  Looks just like a normal Starbucks, except it has Hesco barriers around it (big 6 foot tall baskets full of gravel to protect against shrapnel from mortar attacks).  There is also a big gym which I haven't checked out yet, a PX general store, a few fast-food joints, and some other places typically found on a military base.

All of the workers here are some sort of Middle Eastern and Asian type... I heard most of them have been brought here from Bangladesh and live near the base, but that didn't come from anyone official.  The front-liners know English enough so that you can tell them what you want on your omelet. 

It's raining here...weird.  If you want to look at the weather or where I am on Google Maps, you can probably find it if you search for Camp Buehring, Kuwait.

That's all I've got for now.  Drink an extra beer for me the next chance you get... I'll have to wait a while... :/

Hooah!

Rich

I looked up "Camp Buehring" on Google Maps and it took me to a place on the map in Kuwait named “Camp Udairi.”  It was a square area with an airstrip, surrounded by a lot of sand.  Nothing for miles around it!  Anyway, I was a bit confused since the camp names were different, so I looked up “Camp Buehring” on the web. 

This explanation is from Wikipedia:

Camp Buehring is a staging post for US troops in the northwestern region of Kuwait.  The base is used for military troops heading north into Iraq as well as the primary location for the Middle Eastern Theater Reserve.  The areas surrounding Camp Buehring, known as the Udairi Range Complex, are largely uninhabited, but for a few nomadic Bedouin tribes raising camels, goats, and sheep.

Camp Buehring was named after Lieutenant Colonel Charles H. Buehring who was killed in Baghdad on October 26th, 2003.  Buehring was one of the highest ranking U.S. casualties of the Iraq War.  Camp Buehring had formerly been called Camp Udairi.

Ahhh.  They are one and the same.  Also labeled on the Google Map of Camp Buehring was indeed the Starbucks my soldier mentioned. 

Then I looked up "Hesco barriers" and found this photo on the Internet:

Hesco bastions stacked two high around portable toilets in Iraq

 

Interesting.  Here's a little information on Hesco barriers:

The HESCO bastion is both a modern gabion used for flood control and military fortification developed in the late 1980s. It is made of a collapsible wire mesh container and heavy duty fabric liner, and used as a temporary to semi-permanent dike or barrier against blast or small-arms. It is used on nearly every United States Military base in Iraq as well as on NATO bases in Afghanistan.  

Assembling the HESCO bastion entails unfolding it and (if available) using a front end loader to fill it with sand, dirt or gravel. The placement of the barrier is generally very similar to the placement of a sandbag barrier or earth berm except that room must generally be allowed for the equipment used to fill the barrier. The main advantage of HESCO barriers, strongly contributing to their popularity with troops and flood fighters, is the quick and easy setup. Previously, people had to fill sandbags, a slow undertaking, with one worker filling about 20 sandbags per hour. Workers using HESCO barriers and a front end loader can do ten times the work of those using sandbags.

I am hoping to get a photo from my soldier of the actual Starbucks in Camp Buehring.  Stay tuned.